With their film Roberto Assagioli - The Scientist of the Spirit, directors Erica Pacileo and Fernando Maraghini have presented a new depth of biographical understanding of the late Italian psychiatrist while gorgeously reflecting on screen the vast beauty of human possibility inherent in Assagioli's work. Like his work itself, this documentary is inwardly evocative and grounded in the potentialities of the spiritual self; it's one that we consume with our souls, and it's as nuanced and as deeply explorative as the possibilities Assagioli imagined for our developed psychologies.
Pacileo and Maraghini were wise to chart a course for the visually and tonally aspirational, and they do so early and often: Beautiful modern-day images of Assagioli's historical life journey within Italy - places where he lived and studied and evolved his understanding of the human condition - are wonderfully composed, and serenely interwoven with interviews of subject matter experts. These storytelling elements are further augmented by images of nature's complex majesty: Rolling hills, transforming clouds, and the fluidity of Venice canals condition our souls to open and embrace this documentary as an extended form of Assagioli's own realizations.
Crafted not unlike a meditation, these storytellers create a harmonious and idealized environment in which the psychiatrist's presented findings are best received. It is a strangely beautiful testament to Pacileo and Maraghini - working in posthumous collusion with Assagioli himself - that our own possibilities for growth are reignited in the watching of this wondrous film.
